• Upload doesn't work? Do a loop-back test.• There's absolutely NO excuse for not having an ISP!• Your AVR needs a brain surgery? Use the online FUSE calculator.• My projects: RGB LED matrix, RGB LED ring, various ATtiny gadgets...• Microsoft is not the answer. It is the question, and the answer is NO!

Yeah, so we who are older and wiser, and never in our youth 's played cue seekers and never tried to get off our assignments with the least possible amount of work , we must now by asking them to explain in excruciating detail exactly the state of their project, and exactly why, and how, things are not working, force our young friends to learn of their own accord without us writing a single line of code.

And why very long sentences are bad language constructs, at least as long as you are still in college.

Contentious point of view, but I feel there is a need for people who can help out to sometimes just be 'here is a code" (well noted so you learn something from it).

To me there is a clear split in hard and software with the Arduino....I have just about NO interest in code, it really dose not excite me in the slightest.....but components mmmmm sexy!!!

To me It seems a really strange split that programming help is handed out in breadcrumb trail, pseudo educational manner.

Where as schematics and hardware information is severed up in a little more "you need it, you got it" way.

As stated before, I couldn't give a {radio edit} about code, but iv still gone out and got a couple of books on C and Microcotroles as you have to have a knowledge of both sides, if you want to achieve anything more the what on the turolal pages! (I get that some people don't have that attitude, and that can be irritating I guess)

but some time when your really struggling with what is A foreign language, and the joys of it syntax the last thing you want is a answer that for all intense and purposes is a riddle....educational or not, it can be really off putting and a straight answer resulting in a breakthrough is far more encouraging a motivation to an individual.

Also the assumption that its always a homework, school, or collage project someone just want help with for a easy grade.......iv not been around electronics forums for a long-time, so I don't know if this is a big issue, but from reading post, I know it a big assumption.

I went to art school, and got into the Arduino though the arts long after graduating, I don't have a teacher, or a room full of classmates I can turn to...I have this Forum, and its perfect mix of "Im going to help you work it out" & "here is the code" guys.

Shure, we know that it is not always "homework", and we also know that the Arduino is geared towards a community of people in "non programming" like arts and design where programming and hardware are secondary to the real issues they want to solve.

But we also have our share of people wanting us to do their homework. Many of them are not able to, or have not done enough work to even describe what they require, the current project state and the problems that hinders progress in any understandable way.

When it comes to hardware versus software, if you get a hardware diagram you still have to build it and get all the connections correct in the actual working piece. This requires some skill.

For software this corresponds to the "textual pseudocode, algorithm description" and this is always handed out freely if the problem is described well enough to make this possible.Creating the actual exact C/C++ code from this analysis is similar in a way to building the hardware. Otherwise the code can be copied and that leaves nothing.

And lastly, there is lots of sharing of code in this community. People share enormous amounts of code, high quality code.

n00b, I think the good news is that there are also newbie people out there who l0ve teh codes but don't know crap about hardware, so these two camps of newbies should at least be able to help eachother out!

One thing I'm a little surprised about on this forum is that there isn't a single, clear "newbie" forum. So it seems that some newbie stuff ends up in FAQ, and the rest is spread across everywhere else, a little inappropriately. With a separate, designated newbie forum, you can corral all the stuff in to one place, and the experienced people who want to help can; while those that don't, don't have to be bothered by it.

n00b, I think the good news is that there are also newbie people out there who l0ve teh codes but don't know crap about hardware, so these two camps of newbies should at least be able to help eachother out!

very very true!

Your point about a noob forum is true too......but the trouble with noobs like me, is we dont know what an basic question is compared to as advanced question as they are just unknown quantity to us.

As a result i think the FAQ section seems to be used for more quick response, where as posting in the other sections gets a more detailed answer that may take longer to come.